Does a canceled award go back into circulation?
 

I am trying to book 4 CX awards with AA miles.
The dates aren't available yet on AA, but they are available on BA.
The dates I need are beyond AA devaluation booking window.

So the question is - can I book the CX awards with BA, book other dates with AA, and when my desired dates are available, cancel BA award (pay $55 per redeposit), and move my AA dates to the ones I need?

Moving this to the AA board.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator

It may work, it may not work. It will be dependent upon how CX's system decides at that time what to do with the returned inventory

It cannot be relied upon that award availability will return. Only cancel if it is not a major issue if you are unable to rebook

Anytime you put seats back into inventory, RM/IM will determine how to allocate them, including whether to make them available at all. It may be that demand is higher than predicted, in which case the seats will not be released for awards, it may be that the flight is overbooked moreso than makes RM/IM comfortable and the seats won't be released at all.

Bottom line is that nobody, including anybody at CX knows what will happen at some point in the future and yours is a very risky strategy.

Not at all guaranteed - similarly to how cancelling a cheap ticket does not mean that there is suddenly 1 seat in the cheap fare bucket, instead there is now 1 in the expensive fare bucket and a revenue manager rubbing his hands in glee (metaphorically).

Don't do it.

However, if you do book the CX ticket with BA miles but would prefer to use AA miles even at the lesser value, you could watch for close-in CX availability and if it arises, book with AA miles then cancel the BA. That is, obviously, safe.

Definitely not guaranteed. However, I would say your chances are good since the window between BA vs AA is only 30 days (~360 vs ~330 days) considering you're going to book them as soon as it opens on AA. There's probably a good chance that it will go back into circulation that far out.

I'm guessing you want to book in J and not F (F is a little bit more tricky since the inventory is so limited -- usually just 1-2 seats per flight or none at all).

Now it's a matter of risk vs benefit analysis. Are you willing to risk losing your award ticket on BA and $55 just to save some AA miles pre-deval?